Wedding
by Nyeerg
Summary: Hermione and Ron's muggle wedding goes off without a hitch.


**Dedicated to livinlavidalokid and all the alcohol I drank prior to opening a word document.  
**

Hermione stared out of the window of her childhood bedroom while her mother laced up the back of her wedding gown. Technically, this was her second wedding, since they'd had the wizarding one a week prior, but this was the wedding she'd always dreamt about (albeit at the back of her mind, given all the other things she had to think about to keep the boys from killing themselves or her) since she was a little girl.

"There." Mum tied the laces and made sure both sides of the bow matched in length.

"Thanks, Mum." Outside the window, she could see the Weasleys attempting to get the chairs organized without the use of their wands. One was floating; a quick smack to the back of the head from Mrs. Weasley stopped George's wandless magic. All of them were dressed in varying levels of Muggle formal clothing; at least Ron had Harry to help him with the tuxedo.

"I'm so happy for you, dear." Mum turned her around and carefully hugged her; she'd spent the last hour and a half doing Hermione's hair and makeup. The photographer would do the formal pictures after the ceremony, so Hermione had to be careful not to touch her face or hair until after they'd said their vows.

Somebody knocked at the door. Mum cracked it open to see who, then stepped back to allow Ginny in. "I'll let you girls have some privacy." Mum gave Ginny a quick hug as well and left, closing the door behind her.

Dressed in a blue knee-length dress, Ginny looked absolutely stunning. Next to her, even in her wedding dress, Hermione felt completely foolish for dressing up. It must have shown on her face because Ginny took Hermione's hands in her own and squeezed them. "You look amazing," she said firmly. "Ron isn't going to remember what to say once he sees you walk down that aisle."

"Speaking of that—how is that going? Nobody's done anything in front of my family, have they?" Hermione felt she was doing a decent job of keeping her anxiety at bay—at their wizard wedding, everybody there had known her for years and she knew she was doing the right thing in marrying Ron. Here, in front of all her muggle relatives and what few muggle friends she still had…it seemed so much more _final_. Even though she'd spent more than half her life in the wizarding world, it still wouldn't feel right until they signed the muggle wedding certificate.

"Uh, well, that's part of why I came up here." Ginny smoothed her skirt down instead of meeting Hermione's eyes. "George is planning something. I don't know what, but he's got something stupid in store for Ron."

"Not during the ceremony!" All the blood drained out of Hermione's face. If nothing else went right, she_ needed_ the ceremony to go to plan. The food tables could overturn, it could rain during the photographs, but the ceremony needed to go to plan.

"Bill's going to be keeping an eye on him during the ceremony," Ginny said hastily. "He's not going to let George do anything stupid."

Hermione let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Good. I don't know what my family would do if they saw magic." Unspoken, they both knew that it would be too much to ask Hermione to Obliviate her parents or their family one more time. The heartbreak involved in the first time she'd done it had almost broken her.

"Merlin, please let us get through this without any issues," Hermione mumbled to herself.

"Harry! Does this look right?" Two doors down from Hermione, Ron and Harry were holed up in the master bedroom. Ron pointed at his tie with a pathetically imploring look. In fact, the thin end was sticking out of the bottom and the attempt at a Windsor Knot could not have failed worse by a blind man who'd never felt a tie before.

Harry laughed and undid the grey silk tie for his friend. While there had been some attempt to look like a proper Muggle, Ron's tuxedo was still a little less than orthodox. He wore a pale grey and white pinstriped button down beneath a black silk vest; the tie matched the shirt's grey stripes. Black trousers and a black jacket somewhat maintained the illusion that Ron had some idea what he was supposed to look like at his own wedding. "There." Harry redid the knot the proper way and pinned it to Ron's shirt with the sapphire tie pin that Ginny had given Harry at their first anniversary. Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue—the tie pin fit three of the four requirements. The 'old' was filled by Arthur's grandfather's pocketwatch—apparently it was a Weasley wedding tradition to carry it. "You look perfectly Muggle." He stepped back to survey his much taller best mate.

Ron's hair was combed into something resembling tidy, his shoes were shined, and his tux had yet to crease since Ron had spent the entire time wearing it pacing. "It's not any different, right?" he asked once Harry released him.

"What?"

Ron stepped in front of his sort-of-parent's-in-law's mirror to stare at himself. "The Muggle ceremony. It's basically the same, right?"

"I thought Hermione went over all this already." Harry leaned against the door and crossed his arms; he was dressed in a black suit with a blue vest and tie that matched Ginny's dress.

"She did, but still. She'll kill me if I mess it up." Ron turned a hopeful look on him. "Will you pretend to be Hermione and go over my vows again?"

"You know I will." After all, Ron was right—she _would_ kill him if he messed up the ceremony. Harry wasn't sure why it was such a big deal, given the mostly-drunken adventure by all parties involved (except Ginny; she was seven weeks pregnant and although they weren't ready to announce it yet, she still had to play off not drinking by being the designated apparitioner) that had been their wizarding wedding the week prior, but it was worth letting Hermione have her way in this.

Ron took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and said, "I promise to love and care for you and to be worthy of your love in every way. I promise to be your partner in parenthood and your greatest friend. I give you my hand and my heart, from this day forward, forevermore."

Harry clasped his hands to his chest and screwed up his face. "Oh, Ron! I love you so much! I'll have fifteen children just for you!"

Ron glared at him and turned back to the mirror. "You're an ass." He raised his hands to adjust his tie then thought better of it and dropped his hands back to his sides.

"But I'm your favorite ass. Also I'm the only ass you know that can tie a tie."

"I could have done it with magic," Ron muttered.

"Hermione wouldn't want you to do it with magic. That was half the reason of having a muggle ceremony, Ron." Harry's own wand was in a thigh-holster beneath his trousers. He didn't expect to need it and if he did, he'd have a hell of a time getting to it in a hurry, but it was a comforting weight regardless.

"I know. I didn't think it would be so hard though."

"You'll get through it. After all, the ceremony itself lasts like ten minutes. You say your vows and then we eat cake."

Ron grinned at that. "And that cake is going to be so worth all of this."

"George!" Mum whispered as loudly as she dared and smacked her son across the back of the head. A chair thumped back to the ground and George studiously ignored the angry look she was shooting him.

"Yes, Mum?" he asked. He moved two other chairs, one in each hand, to where they were supposed to go. There weren't a lot of people at the muggle wedding; all of the Weasleys and their wives (and Harry) and the grandchildren, and Hermione's parents and a few aunts, uncles, and childhood friends. Maybe forty people total. George's and Bill's job was to set up the chairs while Charlie and Fleur handled the altar. Ginny had disappeared a moment ago and Harry was trying to get Ron into some semblance of order. Mum's job was mainly to make sure the rest of them didn't use magic.

"Don't give me that 'yes, mum'!" Mum snapped. One of Hermione's aunts stared at them and Mum leaned in closer. "You know you can't use magic in front of the muggles!"

George rolled his eyes. "Mum, a little bit of wandless magic is fine. Nobody's going to believe anything anybody says if they see chairs floating at Hermione's wedding. If we break out the alcohol early, nothing will get questioned at all."

Mum threw up her hands. "I give up!"

Bill bumped him with a chair. "Don't be a jerk," he said. He'd covered up his scars with a cosmetic spell for the ceremony; explaining the gashes to people got tiring after a while, and he didn't want to drag any attention away from his youngest brother and his wife on their big day. "Do what you're supposed to and let Mum calm down."

George rolled his eyes but behaved himself as they organized the rented white wooden chairs. After Fleur finished decorating the altar with blue tulle and white lilies, she ran ribbons through the slats in the backs of the chairs with the help of little Victoire. Audrey, Percy's wife, had corralled the other small children in one corner of the Grangers' garden along with the muggles' children.

"My mum's a quarter Veela," Dominique told one of the other little girls there.

"My mum's a barrister," the little girl said. "That means she fights bad guys."

"My mum does that too, but mostly she stays at home with me and my brother and sister." Dominique ran a small muggle car toy over her little brother's forehead; he was laying down in the dirt and letting the girls use him as a track. Molly and baby Lucy were over by Audrey, listening to a story she was telling to the rest of the kids there.

"That's cool. My dad is home with me usually." The little girl ran a truck over Louis's stomach and made the little boy giggle.

"My dad breaks curses on Ehyption things."

"What's ehyption?"

Dominique shrugged. "I think it's in America?"

Somehow, despite everybody trying their best to behave in the ways they knew how, everybody got into place at the altar at the right time. Hermione peeked through the curtains in the back door; Ron, standing between Ginny and Harry at the altar, looked paler than usual. Harry had a really strange smile and Ginny appeared to be mean-mugging somebody sitting in the front row. "Are you ready?" Mum asked. She slipped a loose strand of hair behind Hermione's ear, then kissed her cheek. "I wasn't sure we'd ever see this day," she admitted quietly. "With that war and all…"

Hermione bit back tears. In a way, they were happy, but there were so many people who should have been seated in those white chairs that weren't. "I know," she whispered. "Me too."

Mum blinked back tears of her own, then Dad rapped his knuckles on the door and they both took a deep breath and wiped the tears from their eyes. Mum opened the door, Hermione stepped through and took Dad's arm, and the hired pianist started playing the Wedding March.


End file.
